Get on board and stay vigilant

An unfortunate side-effect of a technology or a product becoming successful in today’s world is the cyberattacks that follow. IoT is no exception and as we see greater IoT adoption, we will see all kinds of attacks on IoT products, users, software, hardware and networks. There have already been well publicised instances of cyberattacks on IoTs such as the one on Amazon Ring, the security bug in Peloton devices, Mirai botnet compromises and attacks in addition to many not so publicised ones.  Major cyberattacks undermine the trust individuals and businesses place in technology and particularly devastating attacks at early stages of a technology can be severely detrimental to its growth. It is important therefore that organisations in the IoT ecosystem respond to the threat of cyberattacks appropriately.

In this significant challenge also lies the opportunity to build IoT cybersecurity solutions as well as to build more secure IoT products in the market. While many IoT cybersecurity issues are unique to IoT and require new solutions, a number of them are the same old issues in new packaging. This provides organisations with robust cybersecurity solutions an opportunity to customise their solutions and expand their offerings in the IoT ecosystem.

This being in addition to the challenge and opportunity of developing and offering novel IoT cybersecurity solutions to the unique IoT cybersecurity problems.

In addition to the technical solutions, we also require legal and regulatory oversight to close the loop. The unique opportunities that IoT provides bring with it unique attacks and exploitations of the user and user’s data that most of our laws and regulations are unprepared for. Governments and regulatory bodies around the world are starting to take note of this. Those ahead in the game have already come up with efforts, such as the US’s IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act, UK’s PSTI Bill etc. Time will tell how successful these efforts are in the consumer space but what is clear is that there is a need for wide ranging efforts from all stakeholders, including the users, software owners, network owners, hardware owners, regulatory bodies and governments to ensure that the IoT ecosystem is prepared to handle future cyberattacks and that the users’ IoT data as well as personal data is protected.

What’s Happening at IoT Alliance?

Upcoming NZ IoT Alliance Annual Meeting 18 October
 

Register now for our upcoming NZ  IoT Alliance Annual Meeting being held at 1:30pm on 18 October 2022.

NZ IoT Alliance Executive Director, Alison Mackie and Chair, Kriv Naicker, will share a strategy update and plans for the coming year as well as announcing the successful candidates of the IoT Alliance Board elections.

Smart Cities Working Group 
 

The Smart Cities Working Group is a group of like-minded individuals who have been meeting regularly since May 2022 to discuss how IoT technology can be used to advance and assist the development of a smarter city environment.  Members of this Working Group are all passionate about IoT technology and how this can be used to benefit and grow a city’s ecosystem.  Together we have developed a set of deliverables which aim to establish key interest areas driving smart cities and match these to the creative solutions being developed by trail blazing IoT technology providers throughout New Zealand.  

Our recent survey of the IoT community established the following areas of interest and range of solutions. As we only surveyed our database, it is natural that the results are limited, however, it still shows interesting insights and trends within the NZ IoT ecosystem. Check out our website for our survey results and keep an eye out for our upcoming case studies and future webinars. 

If you would like to contribute to our research, you can still participate in our survey and we will update our results. 

The Smart Cities Working Group would like to take this opportunity to thank and farewell one of our founding members, Sonya Hill, who recently moved to an in-house Counsel role with Beca Group Limited, and we welcome Jason Rudkin-Binks, a Partner at tech law firm Hudson Gavin Martin, as our newest member and resident legal beagle.  
 

Ngā mihi nui,

Alison Mackie, NZ IoT Alliance Executive Director